Is it noble or reckless for aid or support agencies to spend
public money to try to entice fresh and, possibly naïve,
inward investment into a country that expropriates foreign owned
private property and steadfastly refuses to pay any compensation
over a period stretching more than a decade?

According to its recent requests for expressions of interest,
"Compete Caribbean is a private sector development program
jointly funded by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the
United Kingdom Department of International Development (DFID) and
the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in partnership
with the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) to provide technical
assistance grants and investment funding to support productive
development policies, business climate reforms, clustering
initiatives and Small and Medium Size Enterprise (SME) development
activities in the Caribbean region.

The Government of Antigua and Barbuda has received financing
from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and intends to
apply part of the proceeds to payments under the project COMPETE
CARIBBEAN: Private Sector Development and Competitiveness, for
consulting services ("the Services") aimed at clarifying
investment opportunities and strengthening the institutional
capacity for attracting foreign direct investment into Antigua
& Barbuda over a 6 month period -September 2013 - February
2014."

The Inter-American Development Bank acts as administrators of
the Compete Caribbean Program and is responsible for applying part
of the proceeds of the grant for what it describes as a
"minimal amount of goods and related consulting services.

The wishful outcome of the project includes examining Antigua
and Barbuda´s focus and positioning for attracting
investments and to identify two target investments sectors and
elaborate their respective FDI strategies and implementation
plans.

The planned Programme concludes with training and mentoring
programs aimed at building capacity and project flow by promoting
and servicing investments through ABIA and other strategic local
stakeholders.

The Inter-American Development Bank has invited consultants with
degrees in Finance, Business Administration or Economics, with over
15 years working experience at a senior managerial level of an
investment promotion agency within Latin America and the Caribbean.
The consultant should be familiar with International Best Practice
Methodologies, Tools and Techniques in Investment Promotion.
They should have experience in staff training for Investment
Promotion Agencies and experience working with international
development agencies (e.g. the European Union, World Bank/IFC/FIAS,
IADB, UNIDO, UNDP, ECLAC DFID, CIDA, CAF).

What is absent from the specification is knowledge of existing
investment conditions in Antigua & Barbuda , with its
well-earned reputation for mal-governance, its history of money
laundering, arms trafficking, drugs dealing and harbouring
fugitives from justice.

However, overarching this is Antigua & Barbuda's long
standing wilful failure to pay foreign private investors a single
penny for its vicious expropriation of their property in order to
hand it to global fraudster R Allen Stanford and their continued
refusal to pay fair and prompt settlement of the debt as ruled by
Privy Council.

In the meantime, the owners have been vilified and publicly
abused. Those who have had the courage to speak out on their behalf
in the media have been threatened, their liberty taken and, along
with the owners, have suffered widespread manipulation of the legal
system.

Unless and until the matter of expropriation is properly,
promptly and fairly settled and overdue interest paid in full,
endeavours to achieve legitimate private inward investment will be
repressed.

Perhaps, in considering the focus of their support the agencies
involved would benefit from sight of the appropriate US
Congressional Record and the Privy Council's ruling on the
matter of Half Moon Bay?

Even "a minimal amount of goods and related consulting
services" is fools' gold and wasted public money but the
real damage could be the acquiescent complicity of the
Inter-American Development Bank, the United Kingdom Department of
International Development and the Canadian International
Development Agency in partnership with the Caribbean Development
Bank's in aiding a rogue regime harm further legitimate
investors.

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